The present invention is directed at gaseous laser, and, particularly, at photolytic atomic iodine laser, and in greater particularity, at a closed cycle, repetitively pulsed, high energy iodine laser. One prior laser system used an open cycle, gaseous fuel system in a cw iodine laser. Because of loss of fuel and buildup of photolytic by-products, a closed cycle system was used. Both longitudinal and transverse lasers were developed. The fuel flow to these lasers resulted from boiling liquid C.sub.3 F.sub.7 I. Although these systems provided a baseline performance, higher energy and pulsing are desired.
Several systems attempting improvements are Germany's Asterix pulsed photolytic iodine laser which produced energies of 1.0 kilojoules per single shot and another using compressed inert gas flashlamps.